The Most loyal
by Lady Eponine Black
Summary: A moonlit encounter between Bellatrix Black and a certain member of the order ends in a fate worse then death. This one-shot may explain a bit about Hermoines intelligence and competence at magic, along with Dumbledores interest in her.   NOT FEMSLASH


She is standing there alone—alone but not lonely, content in her contours of solitude. Her curly dark hair falls down her slim back in a ripple of beauty as her heavily lidded dark violet eyes stare up at the moon, full of bitterness, full of longing, of passion and of despair. A soft wind blows her long black robe around her ankles, her hair whipping her sallow cheek, reflecting cold moonlight onto the Dark witch's silent figure. The murky purple diamond pendant glitters around her milky neck in the heavy moonlight like a beacon, or a star. The thick air, poignant with promise, and pregnant with yearning, settles on her porcelain skin like dust. She couldn't have been more than 21, but her heavily lidded wild eyes are as wise with pain, and as guarded as anybody who has been training in legilimency for twenty years. She holds herself with a strange, lion-like grace, and her hands rests almost lovingly on her pocket, which hides a wand. He slim fingers are splattered with blood, crusty red and pulsing in the serenity and she knows that in a few hours the alarm will be raised that the Chasters, heads of the auror office are lying dead in their back garden, tortured and bloodied. She takes a breath, moon-sprayed air fresh in her throat, still trembling from the euphoria of a successful kill, ripe with information much need by her master. The rush tingles in her blood, pulsed in the veins where the blood of Black runs heavy and undeniable, and her lips curve into a dangerous smile. She relishes the cool air on her flushed face, a welcome reprieve from the warmth brought on by the gory events of the night.

Bellatrix knows that in all respects, she should be reporting to her master with the information gathered, but something is telling her to linger on the corner where she was about to apparate from, some sense that there is still duty to be done. A few wisps of milky clouds race across the crushed diamond velvet of the sky, like ghosts on broomsticks, two laughing ghosts whiling way the night, buffeted by the winds of fate. She yearns to go back to her master, to kneel before him, see his impossibly handsome face peer down at her, to receive his praise, to hear him say she's one of the best, one of his best, that he loves her as she loves him, whispered in his cold, clear voice as icy as the snake he holds, as rasping as a hiss. But she is not a stupid muggle-lover with illusions of love. She knows that her lord can never love her, will never love anybody, ever. She knows that all she is to him is something that can kill, torture, someone he can use, control. But she yearns for more than his praise, she wants to be more than the youngest and only woman in his inner circle, she wants him to love her. But she knows that will never be. But somehow, she believes that if she's good enough, if she kills, tortures enough, obeys him, becomes the best, his most loyal, the most faithful, maybe then he would care, someday. The seeds of a thorny vine, planted at birth, had already grown around her heart, twisting it and deforming it until all that remained was a void of shadows and pain, a barrier of hate and lust stimulated only by the rush of torture and his cold, clear voice. Her love bordered on obsession, a deadly yearning that grew more tangled and twisted as the days wore on, slowly breaking, blackening and burning into ashes. She hovered on the knife-edge of insanity; indeed, it was a stretch to believe that she'd ever been nearly sane. But she had not fallen fully into the numbing fire, still suspended by a love-albeit warped and misshapen- yet it would take only the tiniest push to tumble her down.

She sighs a breath of waves, her slender crimson-stained fingers tapping and tearing impatiently at her robes. She should disparate now, report back, before they come looking for her. Not that they'd find her. Better to be on her guard. All of a sudden, as she's about to vanish, a figure appears on the sidewalk in front of her.

"Ezeerfio." Her spell hissed from between clenched teeth, hitting the figure square in the chest. The figure-a women, it would seem- froze, as if enclosed in ice. Bellatrix sprang forward, and circled the figure, studying her with narrowed eyes. A spy, no doubt, sent from the order, to find out what she was up to. Well, she wasn't going to be reporting to Dumbledore tonight that was sure. She studied the girl carefully, frozen before her in a wide-eyed stillness. She seemed to be much older then Bellatrix herself-by seven or eight years- but of course, that was to be expected. Dumbledore had always shirked away from having underage wizards in the Order. Bellatrix smirked at that, her lips curled like a cats into a tigers snarl that was more ferocious then amused. She had been training with the Dark Lord since her first year, and had been branded with the Mark just days after her 17th birthday. To her, most of her remembered life had been devoted to her Lord, and the rest of her life would be pointless without Him. She cast her gaze over the girl again. Tall, with curly brown hair and soft brown eyes, slim and straight with elegant features and a plain face. Yes, Bellatrix recognized her at one, that Granger women, a powerful auror married to John Granger, smart and talented with a knack for spells and one of Dumbledore's great trusted friends. Bellatrix felt a shiver of joy. Her master would be so pleased. It was no secret how much trusts Dumbledore held in the Grangers.

Senile idiot. Oh, soon he'd see that his puny little order was no match for the Dark Lord, especially when she stood beside him.

"Zeerfnunio." She hissed, the spell that would set the Granger girl free. She stumbled with the sudden lifting of the spell and looked up at Bellatrix with strong, terrified eyes. "Muffliato." Now the girl looked almost terrified, looking around her with wide eyes, stepping back. "Now nobody can hear you _scream_." Hissed Bellatrix, a dangerous low chuckle rumbled from her blood red lips, riding over the girl's horrified squeak. "Tell me where Dumbledore is hiding, you mudblood." She didn't answer. "Tell me now girl, _where is he hiding?_"

"No-never!"

"Where is he-you will tell me now or suffer! Where is Dumbledore?"

"Won't tell you! No!"

"I'll give you one more chance, you worthless scum. _Where is Dumbledore?" _her voice peaked on the last word, and she stepped forward, her wand pointed at the girls heart.

"I'll never tell you! Never never never!" she shrieked, her voice trembling with the fear only Bellatrix could arouse.

"Crucio!" Bellatrix laughed madly as she dueled with the Granger girl, her dark hair twirling around her head like a storm of angry bats, a cloud of angry devils. The granger girl was light on her feet, quick and smart, but Bellatrix, her wand like a knife slashing through the air, was a demon on fire, trained for ten years in the dark Arts by the Master of them all, and it was inevitable that she would win, as she always did. Granger is no match for Bellatrix, wild and laughing with the euphoria of it all, the darkness, the danger and the rush.

"Can't run forever Granger!" she screams, "Crucio!" Her curse at last hits granger in the chest, and she falls back, screaming and writhing in agony, face contorted.

"Where is he-where's Dumbledore?" the granger girl lies panting on the ground, pale and drawn.

"No." she half whispered. "No."

"Crucio!" she laughed, uncontrollable demonic half-mirth, "Where is he you filthy mudblood, you will tell me, you must tell me!"

"No-you can't know."

"CRUCIO, CRUCIO!"

"No, oh god have mercy-please!" her screams rent the air, tore at the dark fabric and give life to Bellatrix's blood.

"Never! Tell me were he is!"

"No."

"Crucio, CRUCIO, _CRUCIO_!"

"No! No! Stop it, oh please stop it!"

"Secrensemptra, crucio, crucio-TELL ME WHERE HE IS!"

Bellatrix paused and regarded her victim; lying curled in a ball on the sidewalk, blood pooling around her. She raised her tortured eyes to Bellatrix, and they overflowed with tears.

"Have mercy-please." She gasped in such a voice that was pitiful and broken enough to melt a heart of stone. But there is no breaking a heart already shattered by twisted love and fathomless madness.

"Mercy? Never." Purred Bellatrix. "Come on now-tell me." She whispered in a voice dangerously low.

"No-i'll-never tell…you." She gasped in a voice cracked by pain.

"Cruci-"

"Wait." Bellatrix lowered her wand with a knowing smirk.

"Yes?" she hissed.

"Dumbledore….is….hiding….in..in..number….12…..Fortimill….road."

"London?"

"Yes."

"Is Dorcras Meadowes with him?"

"_Yes._"

"You're the secret keeper?"

" Yes."

"He trusted _you?_" in a voice smeared with contempt. No answer. "YOU?"

"Yes…he trusted…me."

"And you're betraying him." She smirked in glee.

"No! No! I'd never,"

"But you have, you have betrayed him, little baby granger, you betrayed your master. He will be so…..displeased."

Bellatrix smirked as this touched a nerve. In a second, Granger was on her feet, trembling, eyes alight.

"No!" She screamed. "No! I won't let you get back to your master, i won't let you tell him where they are!" she was staggering towards Bellatrix, a crazed look in her tawny eyes. "Avada Kadavra!" her spell missed by a yard, and tore a raucous laugh out of the Dark Witch.

"Now, now, baby Granger, that's quite enough. Avada-"

"No! Voldemort won't get him! That old idiot half-blood! I won't betray Dumbledore, i am his most loyal, his best his-"

"Shut up you filthy mudblood! You dare! You dare speak his name! You will pay dearly you idiot girl! I would have killed you for that, but i know-oh yes, i know-that there are worse things then death that i can do to you! You spoke his name, you dared! You will be punished; you have insulted my master beyond belief! You bitch, you will pay for that, there is no excuse for insulting My Lord, The Dark Lord! I will go to my master, and we will kill Dumbledore, him and that women he keeps by him, Dorcras Meadowes, we shall kill them both! The Dark lord will triumph, with me by his side, for i am his most trusted, his most loyal! I will be rewarded for my loyalty in the new world my Lord will bring, for i have been his trusted servant for ten years, and you DARE TO INSULT HIM AND CALL HIM BY NAME! You shall pay dearly! _DROZE WLITNA_!" The burst of magic flared in an orange light from her wand, ending her snarling soliloquy, hitting her in the chest, above the heart. Her screams raised above Bellatrix's mad laughter, echoing in the velvety air, unheard by all. Bellatrix casually flicked her wand silencing her.

"Goodbye…._Muggle._" hissed Bellatrix, the Muffliato charm vanished. She disaperated with the swirl of a black cloak and black hair, leaving pain and fear and despair, taking with her the information that would lead to Dorcras Meadowes's capture and kill, and hopefully to the decline of Dumbledore.

The granger girl stood up slowly, and her hand closed around her wand, which surprisingly The Dark Witch had not taken. She spun slowly to apparate, but could not. She looked around her, perplexed.

"A-Acio twig." she pointed at a bit of birch at her feet. Nothing happened. "Windgardium Leviosa." Still nothing. She examined the wand again. "Expecto Patronum-Acio-Diffendio-Silencio-Crucio-Alohamaora-No! No, oh God no!" tears ran down her face as she fingered her wand, now as useless to her as the piece of twig at her feet. But fo all her desperate tears, it did nothing more, would never do anything ever again, did nothing more then it now was-a stick of wood in the hands of a muggle. "No." she whispered. "How could she?"

and she raised her tear stained face to the heavens and tried for what had been lost.


End file.
